The Lonesome Dove

For the past couple of years, my wife Connie and I have seen a lone dove hanging around our farm. We can’t be sure but, we remember there being a couple the year or two before. Then one day all we saw was the single dove. These were Mourning Doves or Zenaida Macroura, and they mate for life. If one dies, the other generally doesn’t look for another mate, hence the term mourning. They live the remainder of their lives in mourning.

Such devotion is rare with humans. Just as sure as a husband or wife passes away, they start looking for another mate. But Paul said: 1 Corinthians 7:6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. 7:7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. 7:8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. 7:9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was at one time a Pharisee. To be a member of the Pharisees, one had to have a wife. So Paul must have been a widower. His reasoning was that not having a wife gave him more time to serve God.

1 Corinthians 7:26 I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be. 7:27 Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife. 7:28 But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you. 7:29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;

Lord, please grant me and my wife the ability to serve you no matter what our state or condition. Help us to continue on in your service should one of us go home to You before the other. Help us to be therewith content no matter what… Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.